Hello, All:
I've inherited a small collection of HP Proliant servers running a variety of ESXi versions...
- ESXi-6.0.0-20160302001-Standard
- ESXi-6.0.0-20160302001-Standard (Updated)
- HP-ESXi-6.0.0-iso-600.9.3.30.2
- ESXi-5.5.0-20140302001-Standard (Updated)
- HP-ESXi-5.5.0-Update2-iso-5.77.3
...that all need to be standardized and updated but the available HP documentation isn't very clear about how to patch, update, or upgrade even the HP custom images.
FIRST: Converting to HP-ESXi...
How can I safely convert the systems over to the HP custom images? Should I find the HP-ESXi off-line bundle that is closest to the currently-installed, NON-HP version and use that? Or should I convert-by-installation (i.e., find the version of HP-ESXi that is closest to the currently-installed, NON-HP version of ESXi and install that over the currently-installed version)?
SECOND: Upgrading to HP-6.5.0...
Should these systems be updated using the latest off-line bundles available from vibsdepot.hpe.com before being upgraded to the latest version of HP-ESXi? Or can I upgrade-by-installation (i.e., install the latest version of HP-ESXi over the currently-installed version of ESXi)?
THIRD: Maintaining HP-ESXi-6.5.0...
After the systems are all running a common version of HP-ESXi (i.e., VMware-ESXi-6.5.0-4564106-HPE-650.9.6.0.28-Nov2016): Should I plan to keep these systems current by applying off-line UpdateX bundles fromvibsdepot.hpe.com (e.g., VMware-ESXi-6.0.0-Update2-3620759-HPE-600.9.6.0.49-Oct2016-depot.zip)? Or is there a more direct route to receiving the lastest updates from VMware?
Message was edited by: Eric Pretorious